


No.4

by Reddish_Enemies



Category: Original Work
Genre: Gen, Moving On
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-17
Updated: 2019-01-17
Packaged: 2019-10-11 14:28:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 579
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17448746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reddish_Enemies/pseuds/Reddish_Enemies
Summary: Jennie ignored all sorts of signs. Now she just had a few days to go.





	No.4

The smell of wet earth filled the air most days and by the end of her time in Auckland, Jennie had grown sick of it. She couldn’t even go anywhere without an umbrella, not even the two blocks to the bank. It wasn’t like home where the sky threatened to open up and pour down rain at any given moment, only for just enough water to come down and cause chaos on the roads. When the MetService app said rain, it _meant_ rain.

Auckland wasn’t even cold once she got used to it, just _wet_. This was no place for canvas or slick-bottomed tennis shoes. No, anything short of boots would have her slipping on some metal plate on the sidewalk.

She escaped that fate today, one misstep away from landing ass-first in a puddle. She was used to the unease in the pit of her stomach overstaying its welcome over small things. Sometimes it was when she actually managed to raise her hand in class (which wasn't often). Jennie felt it before back at the boarding gate in Tom Bradley before she left home for the semester, too. But that time she was just nervous about flying.

Other times it was like today, where she narrowly avoided mild embarrassment. She wasn't sure if it had emerged after walking her boyfriend to the bus stop but even if it had, she forced it down yet again.

She was overthinking the fact that it didn't seem like Jason wanted to even see her that day; the coldness must have just been due to stress. 

As she crossed Park Road, Jennie briefly wondered why she wished her mother had discouraged her from leaving home but she forced that down too. 

No.

Jennie was an adult. She got through all the forms and bureaucracy to get here by her damn self. Maybe her mother, a long-time travel agent, helped her get the best deal on a plane ticket but beyond that, this was Jennie's idea. 

Whether or not it was a good one wasn't even a question or worth the effort to debate with herself.

So instead she focused on laundry.

The bank was a half a block past the bus stop and she needed dollar coins to wash with.

She hated going to the bank but it was a necessary evil. At home, getting wash money rarely required her participation. She just opened the cabinet of cleaning supplies and viola! There was the old peanut can full of quarters. Why Jennie's mother didn't just use a coin purse like she did now that she'd been living on her own, she'd never understand.  

The two minutes it took to get twenty-five dollars in coins seemed to take forever.

“Do you need anything else?” the teller asked. 

Jennie meant to ask about closing her bank account, and she couldn't shake the feeling that she should just close it out in a day or two. It grew stronger by the day, churning in her stomach with her boyfriend's stress and the desire to blame her mother for letting her leave. Instead, she shook her head.

“No, I plan to be back.”

No harm in lying to strangers, as long as she didn’t lie to herself.

The wind picked up the moment she stepped back outside and at that point she just closed her umbrella. This was already number four; she was going home in a few days. No point in ruining yet another one.

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt was 'a person separating from their family'. This is very rough, extremely rough, and there needs to be more exposition about each of the characters and where the separation occurs. But I cranked it out in a couple hours on what turned out to be a very hectic day. I definitely am going to expand this because it's just woefully underdeveloped. I don't usually post things this short but it helped me through something I'm dealing with at the moment so...here it is.


End file.
